Tag: Kurt Johnstad

REVIEW: Atomic Blonde [2017]

Jared Mobarak

“This is the game” It’s hard to believe that I was thinking the stylish, punishing action of John Wick was being dismantled upon as its stuntmen-turned-directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch deciding to go solo two years ago. Stahelski would helm John Wick 2, the result proving a worthy follow-up both in aesthetic and mythology (with more coming). Rather than join him, Leitch shuffled over to Kurt Johnstad‘s adaptation of Antony Johnston and Sam Hart‘s graphic novel “The Coldest City”—a project he and Stahelski were supposed to migrate towards after…

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REVIEW: 300: Rise of an Empire [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Fear his freedom!” This is what a copy of a copy looks like. It pretends to be equal to the original—and in some aspects proves to be exactly the same—yet arrives seven years after everything its groundbreaking ancestor provided was expanded and evolved upon. I loved 300 and gave it a perfect score despite some issues because it was so fresh and exhilarating. It showed how the capabilities of cinema could be pushed even further than Frank Miller‘s other adaptation Sin City, breathing life into a dark and gruesome graphic…

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REVIEW: Act of Valor [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“You’re always trying to get home” Asked by the Navy to create a film to honor the fallen Seals since 9-11 who gave their lives to protect our country, Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh took six months to gain the active team’s trust and begin to understand exactly what they do on a day-to-day basis. As the directing pair’s brief interview playing before my Act of Valor screening explained, once it became time to make the movie neither could fathom doing it with actors who simply could never understand the…

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